(tam)Pon de Replay

The prominent "wicked good" first caught my eye in Tampax's newest advertorial outing.  I'd never heard "wicked" used as a synonym for "totally" until the late nineties, when I went to Rhode Island for school, and haven't heard it all much in the years since Rachel Dratch and Jimmy Fallon left Saturday Night Live.  So, I thought, "Strange choice."  And then my eye refocused on the soft blue background, where I realized there was a cat with its paws raised in the air like it just didn't care, perhaps mewing, "Yo yo yo"- another one I haven't heard in awhile.

And although I can't, for the life of me, get into Sodoku or the Sunday crossword, I'm such a fucking sucker for a puzzle of a tampon ad.  In most of them you can practically see the wheels turning in the ad team's head, except the wheels never stopped before they got to the execution phase and so the final message came out dizzied.

This is what I can gather from the use of Clueless-era lingo "whatever" and "wicked good": Tampax decided that teen girls from a decade ago should know that cardboard tampons are more exciting than they used to be.  I'm unclear on what's up the illustrated girl accompanying the "whatever," but she's either using an older, less space-age version of a cardboard tampon or she's into plastic (Whole Foods clientele raises a disapproving eyebrow).  Either way, she's at home on the couch in her depressing bunny slippers.  They smell not like feet but like ass.  There's no one to share the gigantic bowl of popcorn from which she lackadaisically eats; a few pieces have fallen on the floor, slovenliness just a further indicator of depression.  Even the cat (I didn't mean to cut its top half off while scanning but am too depressed to redo) is disillusioned with its owner.  It has flung itself across the back of the couch and looks upon the girl with an expression that says, "Your tampon bores me."  The girl's tampon has so wilted her identity that she wears a shirt bearing a "O," demonstrating a raging self esteem problem.   And to reinforce the message like built-in backup (TM) skirts reinforce its tampons, Tampax has labeled the vignette "boring" in a courier font.

But, hey, wake up vagines- it doesn't have to be so!  Cardboard is a party in the pants.  After the gynecological swap-out, the illustrated girl has changed into a polka-dotted frock with a nipped waist and a chunky bangle.  Also, looks to me like she cut layers.  The "yo yo yo"-ing is in an italic font, usually employed to suggest quotation, so she and the cat are probably dancing to what the kids call hip-hop.  Or maybe the tampon is what's being quoted, since there are props (popcorn, bowl, couch) in the other tableau, whereas this one is free of worldly markers.  No boom-box, no accident.  The girl's feet aren't planted firmly on the ground but on the cusp of the anti-slip grip porthole.  She is in tampon ether.  The cat might be floating itself.  It doesn't loathe the girl anymore.  It wishes it weren't spayed.

And apparently, skirts are the new trend in tampon advertising because Playtex's latest offering has consumers picturing tampons as pink girls who go up inside you and then twirl, twirl, twirl!

Comments

[eroggin]

I think the cat is obviously allegorical. It's a pussy cat - her pussy was bored, and now her pussy is kicking up its heels. I can't believe I wrote the word pussy. I hate that word. But it had to be done.
er

[sara]

I had the same thought as Eroggin! Also, "wicked" isn't dated, it's regional (as you mentioned). ...and it's still going strong with the native New Englanders here in the Boston area.

[kristen]

we are still wicked cool in the wicked northeast. and because we're wicked smaht, we use kotex instead.

[Greg The Doctor]

The FemTex product purchased in the "Every Thing is Under a Dollar!!!" store in Bennington unfortunately had no such advertising budget or savvy to market their product. The First Quality company also makes an adult-sized diaper named, intriguingly, "Prevail." (but they do provide a video in their Continence Management Program).

[bree]

I can't believe you researched Tex Greg. Oh and Andrea, since you love poetry...

Femtex
for Andrea and Dr. Greg

Dr. Greg tells me that Andrea is worried
about my dollar store tampons.
I ask her if it’s because the pen
she bought there exploded.

I ask her if she is afraid
that tiny cotton shrapnel
will burst into my body
and slowly poison me
like a leaky saline breast.

But it’s not that, it’s the way
they store them she is worried about,
the spores, the chemicals.
"I mean, this is going into your body."

[Little Willow]

Red panda alert.
http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2007/07/the-elusive-bam.html

[*pixie*]

You had me at courier font. Hilarious post.

[kimblahg]

ah yes psych through mass advertisting. hilarious post.

[marga]

Tampax is made in Palmer, MA. MASSACHUSETTS, as in Wicked Good, Wicked Pissah, Wicked Cool, etc. We still say it all the time. We're not proud. We're wicked proud!

[gingermog]

This is the best analasist of a Tampon advert I have ever come across. Hmm it may be the first analasist of a Tampon advert I have come across, but anyway um "Wicked" post.

[Ree]

There's so much wrong about that ad - it's beyond words.

[Maxine Dangerous]

OH. MY. GOD. They're TAMPONS. The only thing that makes them wicked is that they're chemical-releasing, cotton carcinogens. Some things don't need to be marketed with rainbows and !awesomeness! and unicorns singing love songs while they play ukeleles next to a crystal blue Italian stream. TAMPONS! NOT SPECIAL OR EXCITING! ARGH!

I'm especially ashamed as a lesbian that I missed the happy cat/happy pussy connection. (I'm totally blaming this on a lack of sleep.) There's a little too much of this bullshit "Have a happy period!" marketing going on. Yes, periods are womanly (duh) and awesome and our cycles connects us to the earth and the universe and the moon and each other and we ebb and we flow and we're powerful (and sometimes we're really pissed off because periods can obviously be really effin irritating) but the kick-up-your-heels and dance while wearing skintight white capris marketing crap has GOT TO GO.

Oooooooooookay. I'm going to step off my soapbox and go see if someone has a Valium I can take.

[Alison]

May I recommend a Keeper or Diva cup as a tampon alternative? I don't guarantee that it will make your.. um, cat.. dance to hip hop, but it's good for the environment and way less of a pain to carry around.

[Geezer]

...you birds are so sad. Really Lame, is this what really interests you. And you think us guys are useless for being in to action, cars, etc. You all; need to get out and about a lot more and here's a tip..dont talk about this as your social conversation..zzz. Definitely get heavily laid a lot more. What ever your sexuality is. HOW BORING ARE YOU PEOPLE!

[Annie]

I have another take on this advertisement. I believe that the reason that the depressed girl and her similarly mopey cat are all "boring" and "whatever" is that the girl is wearing an inferior tampon, and is therefore relegated to a sitting position, for fear of slippage.

But then if you use a "wicked" (is that a play on words? Cause, like, a tampon "wicks" the blood away from the clothing and the va-jay-jay?) tampon, you and your cat can get on your hind legs and show off your possibly-ironic dance moves.

[KC]

The mention of cardboard itself and the fact that it looks like a pack of cigarettes is what got me way back when i first saw mention of this product. There has to be branding efforts for this.

[HighJive]

Perhaps the creative team was trying to tap into the smash-hit “Wicked” theatrical play, which I’m told is very popular among women.